17 July 2006

165 - Jose We Can't See

The lyric of the Star-Spangled Banner has been stuck in my head for a while. Not the whole song, mind you, mostly just the first few lines. Last month, for my son's so-called Moving Assembly, whereby he graduated from kindergarten, I helped him memorize the lyric to the National Anthem. But the first line of the anthem has always been a special one, for the punster in me. I have heard many jokes about "Jose, Can You See?"

A few weeks ago, my company hired a guy named Jose, in TamPa, to replace a position in higher-cost-of-living northeast. I was asked to train him but I happened to be in the midst of a major project rollout so I passed the task to someone else. My colleague Saq showed this Jose guy the rope via SameTime meeting and phone. Jose pinged me a couple of times on SameTime as well, asking this and that.

In my spare time at home, I maintain the group floor plan, which for each person in the group, shows either a photograph or a cartoon that I drew, along with their full Lotus Notes name, phone extension, and which network environments that they specialize in (roughly, anyway). Last weekend, I finally had the time to try to include our friend Jose in the floor plan. I was going to just list his name, with the remark as "TamPa" and his phone number. However, the company phone directory didn't list his phone number. Monday morning, he wasn't on SameTime, so I emailed him. Later in the day, I learned from a Team Lead that NE management was trying to contact him all day, including getting in touch with his consulting company, but to no avail. Tuesday, it was finally learned that he actually already quit the Friday before - supposedly he got a better offer elsewhere and didn't bother give us the two-week notice. (Personally, I find the whole thing about two-week notice just pure B.S. How is it that when a company can fire you at a moment's notice, but you have to give them two weeks?)

"Jose We Can't See, Where Were You On Monday?" That perfectly describes our situation this past Monday!